


remedy of love

by sarcasm_and_sabres



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-29 23:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17213156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasm_and_sabres/pseuds/sarcasm_and_sabres
Summary: Willy watches Kyle stumble off the mound, heart in his throat and hand still slightly outstretched like he can do anything, anything at all to help.





	remedy of love

**Author's Note:**

> Written from the prompt Kyle Hendricks/Willson Contreras/just breathe.
> 
> I wanted to have this up on Christmas, but oh well. Happy early New Year. Hopefully it's full of successful Cubs baseball.
> 
> If you found this by searching yourself, please don't read it. This is fictional and intended solely for personal entertainment.

“Hey,” Willy says, trotting out to the mound with his glove held over his mouth. “You good?”

Kyle lifts his own glove, biting back a curse. “Fine. Let me pitch.”

“Take a moment, man, come on.” Willy puts a hand on Kyle’s lower back, pulls him in close like they’re talking intently about pitch selection.

“Yeah?” Kyle asks, bitterly. “What purpose is that gonna serve?”

“You’re breathing like you’ve just sprinted the bases, just breathe for a second.” Willy’s starting to look genuinely concerned and Kyle would really love to breathe for a moment and get his breathing under control, but his heart has been racing just about the entire game and even sitting in the dugout did nothing to fix it. 

“I’m fine, just go back to the plate,” Kyle says, trying to not sound like he’s out of breath so Willy will stop looking so concerned. It’s only the third inning, Kyle can’t leave this early and leave the bullpen to eat more than six innings. Never mind how his vision is starting to blur a little, but it doesn’t matter.

Willy puts his hand on Kyle’s chest, and Kyle can tell the exact moment he feels Kyle’s thundering heart. His eyes widen and he looks over towards the dugout, probably intending to get a trainer over, but Kyle catches his hand.

“Come on, Willy,” he tries to say, but his tongue feels thick in his mouth and he’s having trouble forming the words. He’s dropped Willy’s wrist without meaning to and Willy’s now holding onto his arm and gesturing frantically towards the dugout. 

“Just breathe,” he hears Willy saying, but his lungs don’t seem to be working right and his vision is swimming. He feels another set of hands on his arm, encouraging him to sit down on the mound. As he lowers himself to the ground, his vision starts to clear and he can see that it’s PJ holding onto his arms and kneeling in front of Kyle.

“What’s going on?” PJ asks, frowning and letting go of Kyle’s arm in favor of patting his cheek. 

“Dunno,” Kyle gasps, grabbing onto PJ’s arm and clasping it with all the strength he can muster. “Can’t—can’t breathe.”

“Alright, I think we need to get you out of here. Can you walk?” 

Kyle nods and immediately regrets it as his vision swims again. It clears more quickly this time, thankfully, and with PJ and Willy’s help he manages to get back on his feet. The cheers of the crowd are loud enough to be heard over the rushing in his ears, and he weakly lifts a hand to acknowledge their recognition. The crowd cheering for a starting pitcher leaving in the third inning for no visible reason means a lot, and he’d be touched by it if he could just get in a deep breath.

\---

Willy watches Kyle stagger off the field, grateful for Javy’s hand on his arm keeping him from running after his boyfriend. He’d noticed Kyle’s precision going a little downhill and that he’d seemed a little agitated, but he hadn’t anticipated Kyle’s quick decline into looking like he was having a heart attack. It couldn’t have been a heart attack, could it? Kyle’s young, he’s healthy, and young and fit guys don’t just have heart attacks in the middle of a baseball game. Willy really hopes, anyways.

“Kyle estará bien,” Javy says quietly, patting Willy on the arm. Willy offers a weak smile in return, trying to keep himself in control. He needs Kyle to be okay, he needs Kyle to come home with him so he can curl up with him and their cat and so Willy can kiss him until he stops seeing Kyle’s eyes go totally unfocused.

“Gracias,” Willy mutters back, staring down at his glove and tracing a finger over the laces. It’s only the third inning, he’s going to have to wait ages to see Kyle even if they get news earlier in the game. God, he really hopes they find out what happened before the end of the game.

Monty reaches the mound then, offering Willy a sympathetic smile as he takes the ball somehow still nestled in Willy’s glove.

“Got your head in the game?” Monty asks as the infield starts to head back to their positions and Joe converses with the umpires. 

“Of course,” Willy says with a valiant attempt at keeping the bitterness out of his voice. There’s nothing he wants more than to follow Kyle, to keep a hand over his heart so he can feel it continuing to beat, to make sure he’s okay. If he was a normal person he’d be more likely to get to make sure his boyfriend is okay.

But he’s got a game to focus on, he reminds himself when he crouches back behind the plate. Kyle hadn’t wanted to leave the game, the last thing he’d want is Willy blowing it by not concentrating.

\---

Willy’s pretty sure both assistant trainers are about ready to strangle him by halfway through the fifth inning. The only thing they’ve been able to tell him is that PJ had gone to the hospital with Kyle, which is exactly the opposite of reassuring. If it’s actually possible to lose years of your life from stress, Willy’s losing about a year per pitch this game.

He loves playing baseball and he loves this team, but he also really loves Kyle and right now it’s hard to prioritize his job—his job playing a fucking kid’s game—above his boyfriend’s health.

His skin is crawling with anticipation through the entirety of the ninth, each pitch dragging on a thousand years with the more time he spends not knowing how Kyle is. They’re clinging to a one run lead, too, and if they blow it and have to play the bottom of the ninth or, god forbid, extras, Willy is genuinely going to start screaming.

He runs to the mound to hug Stropy the second the last out has been recorded, and gets a big smile and a sympathetic pat on the back.

“Go get your boy,” Stropy says. “Tell him we’re all wishing him well.”

“I will,” Willy promises. The handshake line seems to take an hour, and then finally, finally, he can get back to the locker room. There’s nothing from Kyle when he checks his phone, and he seriously considers skipping a shower so he can get to the hospital. But they’re probably not going to like a smelly, sweaty, baseball player messing with their cleanliness, so instead he just takes the fastest shower he’s ever had and speeds the entire way to the hospital.

When he parks, he’s got a text from one of the assistant trainers with Kyle’s room number and a message from Kyle that just says “I’m okay.”

Willy doesn’t believe it in the slightest, of course, but it’s a relief that Kyle’s doing well enough to be texting and insisting that he’s okay.

\---

Willy knocks before pushing the door to Kyle’s room open slowly, bracing himself for how bad Kyle might look. What he doesn’t expect is Kyle’s cheerful smile and wave, and how he looks about ready to get up and go finish out the game he’d left.

“I saw the game, you guys really picked me up out there,” he says, pushing a button and sitting up more in the bed. “How’re you doing?”

“How am I doing? I’m not the one who’s in the hospital.”

“You looked worried, when I was watching the game.”

Willy perches on one of the chairs next to Kyle’s bed, reaching out to take Kyle’s hand in both of his.

“I was worried. How are you, really? What happened?”

Kyle smiles faintly, looking a bit sheepish. “Cardiac arrhythmia, apparently. They think it’s because of the allergy meds I took this morning, apparently this can be a side effect.”

“That’s…that’s it?” Willy asks, taken aback. He’d been expecting a heart attack, something that would need surgery, something terminal. Not something that mundane.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, rolling his eyes slightly. “It seems so dumb. I’m okay, though, and they just want me to stay overnight to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Willy glances over at the door to make sure it’s closed, then leans forward to give Kyle a gentle kiss on the cheek. “I’m really glad you’re okay. I was so worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Kyle says. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Don’t apologize, dummy. It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“Still, I don’t like it when you’re worried. Especially when it’s my fault.” Kyle sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Come here?”

“In bed with you? Is that…okay?” Willy asks, glancing back at the door. He’s worried both about someone finding them and upsetting one of the too many wires connected to Kyle.

“It’s fine. It’s just cuddling. It’s cold in here, haven’t you noticed?”

Willy hesitates another moment, but he’s never been able to resist Kyle’s smile. He carefully climbs into the bed next to Kyle, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and letting him lean back against Willy’s chest. This way, he can press a hand to Kyle’s chest and feel his heart beating, slowly and rhythmically and steadily. 

“I’m good, really,” Kyle says, voice soft, but he doesn’t move or dislodge Willy’s hand. 

“You’re the best, actually,” Willy says, kissing Kyle’s temple. He knows he’s being sappy but Kyle just laughs quietly. 

“Love you too,” he says, turning his head so he can give Willy a proper kiss. And this time, Willy’s not at all concerned about the rapid beating of both his and Kyle’s hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you enjoyed!


End file.
